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Old 07-15-2019, 06:39 PM   #1
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AH Battery help URGENT

Hey all!

Working on my solar (no clue what I'm doing lol) I have 2 100w mono panels from renogy and plan on adding 2 more. I am just about to buy 2 100ah sized batteries and also considering adding 2 more. My question is if you want to basically match the solar wattage to the ah. 2 100w panels 2 100ah batteries, 4 100w panels 4 100 ah batteries and so on. I have done my power audit and attached it, any help is really really appreciated as I am in way over my head hahah!

Thanks,

Kevin
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Old 07-15-2019, 07:59 PM   #2
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100 amp hours at 12 volts equals 1200 watts capacity per battery. Ideally you only discharge your house batteries to 50% so you'd need 600 watts per battery to recharge the bank. Assuming full solar panel output it would take 6 hours to recharge the bank. I'm sure that in the real world it would take a bit longer.

From what I've read, you want to match your converter/charger charging amps to the size of the battery bank.

I'm sure someone with more solar experience will chime in.
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Old 07-15-2019, 08:04 PM   #3
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You want way more solar than it takes to charge the battery bank and way more battery than you need to power the expected loads. I would triple the battery you think you need and try and squeeze as much solar as you can afford. Always over engineer because you will be much happier having the power and not needing it than to not have it and need it or fry a battery bank because you over depleted it. On my build I'm slowly piecing together 1000ah of agm batteries and would like 2000watts of solar, but based off my recommendation to you I should have 5000 watts. You can only afford what you can afford. Remember you can always charge your batteries off a generator if you don't have enough panels or the weather is bad for long periods.
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Old 07-15-2019, 10:55 PM   #4
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Hello Kevin. I'm a former Vermonter - what a great state! I'd love to add some useful input here. I took a look at your table, and I'm suspicious of some of the numbers. This will make a BIG difference to your final design. Does your fridge really consume 89Watts all the time? I have a 120V dorm style fridge (slightly larger) that averages 13 watts. If you have your fridge available you might want to plug it into a Kill-O-Watt meter to see what its average watt rating is. Are you really going to run two different 1300 watt induction units for 3 hours each per day? And will they actually be on high for the entire 3 hours? The real number here is a really big deal!! And does your water pump really consume 250 watts? That might be true. But will the pump actually be running for 3 solid hours a day? Keep in mind that many loads with a certain amperage or watt rating will actually average far less than that rated wattage. A fridge probably doesn't run 100% of the time. An induction burner probably isn't on high for 100% of the time, etc.

And the other part of solar is what are the worst case conditions that this will need to run in? Vermont in the winter? Somewhere else in the winter? And are you going to have any other charging source? There are some slick ways to charge from your bus alternator (with some caution...). These things will affect both solar panel size and battery requirements. Hopefully these questions aren't overwhelming.... I'd love to toss in my two cents worth if you are able to just verify these details.
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Old 07-15-2019, 11:28 PM   #5
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Hello Kevin. I'm a former Vermonter - what a great state! I'd love to add some useful input here. I took a look at your table, and I'm suspicious of some of the numbers. This will make a BIG difference to your final design. Does your fridge really consume 89Watts all the time? I have a 120V dorm style fridge (slightly larger) that averages 13 watts. If you have your fridge available you might want to plug it into a Kill-O-Watt meter to see what its average watt rating is. Are you really going to run two different 1300 watt induction units for 3 hours each per day? And will they actually be on high for the entire 3 hours? The real number here is a really big deal!! And does your water pump really consume 250 watts? That might be true. But will the pump actually be running for 3 solid hours a day? Keep in mind that many loads with a certain amperage or watt rating will actually average far less than that rated wattage. A fridge probably doesn't run 100% of the time. An induction burner probably isn't on high for 100% of the time, etc.

And the other part of solar is what are the worst case conditions that this will need to run in? Vermont in the winter? Somewhere else in the winter? And are you going to have any other charging source? There are some slick ways to charge from your bus alternator (with some caution...). These things will affect both solar panel size and battery requirements. Hopefully these questions aren't overwhelming.... I'd love to toss in my two cents worth if you are able to just verify these details.
Glenn! Thanks for the reply. The fridge I'm going to run is the Mr Buddy 63 quart fridge and only draws .74 amps/hour. I'm thinking about nixing the induction burners and just working off propane. I'd like to do the burners but I also don't want to kill my reserves running them. My wife and I love to cook so I was definitely over estimating numbers with that. As far as the water pump I think we are just going to switch to a foot pump for the time being.

So worst case scenario are winters in Montana. We just moved back to Montana and the winters are similar to VT. They can get pretty dark and dreary so I was definitely thinking of doing something off the alternator. Any recommendations on isolators and how much ah I would need with the energy audit I did?

Thank you so much for your help, it's really really appreciated!!!

Best,

Kevin
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Old 07-16-2019, 12:54 AM   #6
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Kevin. Thanks for that additional information. So the fridge is drawing 8.9 watts, not 89 watts. If you are doing a lot of cooking then electric cooking isn't a great option. I don't think you need to toss out the electric water pump. I did some calculations with a 250 watt pump running 1 hour per day which still seems too high. Your original numbers had 9000WH per day. Dumping the electric cooking and correcting the fridge brought this down to 1155 KWH per day. You didn't mention if your batteries were going to be AGM or Lithium. It is safe to draw AGM batteries down to about 50% of charge. Lithium can be drawn down to about 20% of charge. This makes a big difference on available power. The size of the solar system relative to the batteries can vary all over the place based on the environment the solar will run in. Montana winters will be an incredible challenge, and depending on how cloudy it is where you are I doubt that even a large solar system would handle your load. So putting some numbers on it: I would be thinking about 400 ah of batteries. If these were AGM then you have 200 ah available which is 2400 watt-hours available (200 * 12). That's enough to run you for 2 days - that's pretty marginal. I would probably be thinking about 400 watts of solar if you can fit it. If you estimate that you average 3 hours equivalent sun each day in the winter then this gives you 1200 watt-hours of energy per day, which just barely meets your electric needs of 1154 watt-hours per day. Of course if you get many days of cloudy weather then you're toast. As far as getting juice from the alternator, I can share these thoughts: There are a lot of ways to use a massive relay to connect your house batteries to the bus charging system whenever the alternator is on. This would allow massive charging currents to your batteries. But this massive charging current won't be good for your batteries over time, and might destroy your alternator. I'm not that familiar with bus alternators (vs. van alternators), but in my van the alternator has a duty cycle, so that even if it's a 175 amp alternator it can't put that out for an hour straight. the devices that tie these together are called Battery combiners. Again - many of these are basically a big relay. I bought a Magnum ME-SBC smart battery combiner. This charges at 25 amps. It's a great solution for me where I have smaller batteries and will be driving for many hours most days, but with your larger batteries and possibly less engine-on time you'll need more current. I thought I saw someone with a 60 amp unit, but I don't know where that was. If you're going to be near a power source in Montana then buying an inverter/charger combination is a great choice.
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Old 07-16-2019, 08:09 AM   #7
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Kevin. Thanks for that additional information. So the fridge is drawing 8.9 watts, not 89 watts. If you are doing a lot of cooking then electric cooking isn't a great option. I don't think you need to toss out the electric water pump. I did some calculations with a 250 watt pump running 1 hour per day which still seems too high. Your original numbers had 9000WH per day. Dumping the electric cooking and correcting the fridge brought this down to 1155 KWH per day. You didn't mention if your batteries were going to be AGM or Lithium. It is safe to draw AGM batteries down to about 50% of charge. Lithium can be drawn down to about 20% of charge. This makes a big difference on available power. The size of the solar system relative to the batteries can vary all over the place based on the environment the solar will run in. Montana winters will be an incredible challenge, and depending on how cloudy it is where you are I doubt that even a large solar system would handle your load. So putting some numbers on it: I would be thinking about 400 ah of batteries. If these were AGM then you have 200 ah available which is 2400 watt-hours available (200 * 12). That's enough to run you for 2 days - that's pretty marginal. I would probably be thinking about 400 watts of solar if you can fit it. If you estimate that you average 3 hours equivalent sun each day in the winter then this gives you 1200 watt-hours of energy per day, which just barely meets your electric needs of 1154 watt-hours per day. Of course if you get many days of cloudy weather then you're toast. As far as getting juice from the alternator, I can share these thoughts: There are a lot of ways to use a massive relay to connect your house batteries to the bus charging system whenever the alternator is on. This would allow massive charging currents to your batteries. But this massive charging current won't be good for your batteries over time, and might destroy your alternator. I'm not that familiar with bus alternators (vs. van alternators), but in my van the alternator has a duty cycle, so that even if it's a 175 amp alternator it can't put that out for an hour straight. the devices that tie these together are called Battery combiners. Again - many of these are basically a big relay. I bought a Magnum ME-SBC smart battery combiner. This charges at 25 amps. It's a great solution for me where I have smaller batteries and will be driving for many hours most days, but with your larger batteries and possibly less engine-on time you'll need more current. I thought I saw someone with a 60 amp unit, but I don't know where that was. If you're going to be near a power source in Montana then buying an inverter/charger combination is a great choice.

Wow, thank you for all the help! We will be running AGM. I have two on the way and will be adding two more. I have 2 solar panels and will be adding two more as well. Final setup before winter hits should be 400w solar and 400ah. As far as charging is concerned, I read somewhere about what you are talking about. It sounded like charging off the alt gave a huge burst of energy which can be good on the front end but then needs to be slowly charged from solar as a trickle? Is a battery combiner the same thing as an isolator?

Thanks again for all the great info!

Best,

Kevin
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Old 07-16-2019, 08:12 AM   #8
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Some of the things called battery combiners are isolators. The idea is the same. When the vehicle is running to tie the battery sets together. But when the vehicle is off you isolate so that the house batteries don't drain the starting batteries. Either of these devices won't top off the battery completely, will get close. That's where the secondary system comes in - an inverter/charger or solar charger. These will top off the batteries.
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Old 07-17-2019, 05:40 PM   #9
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just the burner

If I see the chart correctly, I see your burner takes 11amps AC to run, this means it will pull 110 amps of Dc to run, one amp AC equals about 10 amps DC, I have not even gotten into the ~20% of you power that will be lost between the panels/wires/connectors/inverters/etx.



The max power you can pull from a battery and not have the voltage drop significantly is about supposedly about 10% of its AH capacity, this means you can only pull about 10 amps from a 100ah battery, but from personal experience with my batteries pulling 10% will only last a few minutes before the battery voltage drops below 11v and the inverter shuts down.


Another limit of lead acid batteries is that you can only charge them with up to about 10% of their AH capacity on a regular basis before you start to age them so you would only want to put about 10 amps of solar per 100ah battery, as measured at the battery post.



Since you live up north and the sun will be low in the horizon you will probably want 300 to 400 watts of solar per battery, to max your charging ability but this depends upon the tilt of the panel and any trees in the way.
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Old 07-18-2019, 08:08 PM   #10
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If I see the chart correctly, I see your burner takes 11amps AC to run, this means it will pull 110 amps of Dc to run, one amp AC equals about 10 amps DC, I have not even gotten into the ~20% of you power that will be lost between the panels/wires/connectors/inverters/etx.



The max power you can pull from a battery and not have the voltage drop significantly is about supposedly about 10% of its AH capacity, this means you can only pull about 10 amps from a 100ah battery, but from personal experience with my batteries pulling 10% will only last a few minutes before the battery voltage drops below 11v and the inverter shuts down.


Another limit of lead acid batteries is that you can only charge them with up to about 10% of their AH capacity on a regular basis before you start to age them so you would only want to put about 10 amps of solar per 100ah battery, as measured at the battery post.



Since you live up north and the sun will be low in the horizon you will probably want 300 to 400 watts of solar per battery, to max your charging ability but this depends upon the tilt of the panel and any trees in the way.
Man that's going to be tough... We decided to nix the electric burners and just run propane for cooking. Not a big deal. All we can really afford are the 100ah batteries. Money is definitely tight so hopefully there's a way to make this work... I am setting up the system with 2 100w panels and 2 100ah batteries but got a 40 controller and plan on adding the other 2 panels and 2 batteries in the next few months. Even if we just have enough power to run led lights and do some light electronics charging we will be happy. We don't really watch TV or anything. Gotta get the wood stove in ASAP as well before the snow comes
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Old 07-18-2019, 11:48 PM   #11
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Man that's going to be tough... We decided to nix the electric burners and just run propane for cooking. Not a big deal.

Even with a significant solar system, it's best to use non-electric energy sources for any of the big draws, and cooking is definitely one of them. Using electric burners on solar is generally a bad plan. So feel good... you made a wise decision. Same goes for heating.



Quote:

All we can really afford are the 100ah batteries. Money is definitely tight so hopefully there's a way to make this work... I am setting up the system with 2 100w panels and 2 100ah batteries but got a 40 controller and plan on adding the other 2 panels and 2 batteries in the next few months. Even if we just have enough power to run led lights and do some light electronics charging we will be happy. We don't really watch TV or anything. Gotta get the wood stove in ASAP as well before the snow comes


It seems most people tend to view solar as an alternative to generator power, when in fact a generator is as much a necessary component of any complete off-the-grid solar system as batteries & panels. IMO, the FIRST solar system component you should buy - if you don't own one already - is a generator. You can get a good 2200W inverter generator for <$500 brand new, probably a good deal less used if you shop around. It doesn't care if the sun is shining. It doesn't require power storage. It will sip fuel. You can get another later to run parallel which will provide a full 30+ amps. And when you do build out your solar system, it will still be needed and useful.
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:15 PM   #12
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Even with a significant solar system, it's best to use non-electric energy sources for any of the big draws, and cooking is definitely one of them. Using electric burners on solar is generally a bad plan. So feel good... you made a wise decision. Same goes for heating.







It seems most people tend to view solar as an alternative to generator power, when in fact a generator is as much a necessary component of any complete off-the-grid solar system as batteries & panels. IMO, the FIRST solar system component you should buy - if you don't own one already - is a generator. You can get a good 2200W inverter generator for <$500 brand new, probably a good deal less used if you shop around. It doesn't care if the sun is shining. It doesn't require power storage. It will sip fuel. You can get another later to run parallel which will provide a full 30+ amps. And when you do build out your solar system, it will still be needed and useful.
Urrggggggg. I had one of the Harbor Freight 2000w Generators but returned it thinking that we would be with solar/alternator charging. Guess that's another thing to save up for hahaha, thanks for the advice. BUS LIFE. Would I want to use the genny to charge my battery bank? Can't wait to get this wood stove in. I think we are just going to get one of these https://www.acehardware.com/departme...xoCmbAQAvD_BwE

The cubic minis are cool and all but it seems like a lot of loading through the night and it sounds like they only take small chunks of wood. We live in NW MT so keeping it warm at night is going to be key.
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:17 PM   #13
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I'm not a believer that you need the generator. Your winter experience might be a challenge, but if you really run the numbers and pay attention to your actual usage I'd just go for the solar with the smart battery combiner so that you can safely get some charge from your bus's alternator.
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:22 PM   #14
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Even with a significant solar system, it's best to use non-electric energy sources for any of the big draws, and cooking is definitely one of them. Using electric burners on solar is generally a bad plan. So feel good... you made a wise decision. Same goes for heating.







It seems most people tend to view solar as an alternative to generator power, when in fact a generator is as much a necessary component of any complete off-the-grid solar system as batteries & panels. IMO, the FIRST solar system component you should buy - if you don't own one already - is a generator. You can get a good 2200W inverter generator for <$500 brand new, probably a good deal less used if you shop around. It doesn't care if the sun is shining. It doesn't require power storage. It will sip fuel. You can get another later to run parallel which will provide a full 30+ amps. And when you do build out your solar system, it will still be needed and useful.
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I'm not a believer that you need the generator. Your winter experience might be a challenge, but if you really run the numbers and pay attention to your actual usage I'd just go for the solar with the smart battery combiner so that you can safely get some charge from your bus's alternator.
Right on, thanks Glenn. Do you have any recommendations for battery combiners? What differentiates a 'smart' combiner from a normal?
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:44 PM   #15
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Sorry, but will YOU be trying to survive a NW Montana winter on solar, alone?!!
A] the Sun is at it's closest to the horizon. What light arrives is filtered thru a considerably thicker column of air.
B] Don't recollect ever reading MT is the go-to place to work on your winter tan. So, let's add less protracted sunlight, with inclement weather to the already reduced solar strength.
.
A gen-set should be a no-brainer for inclusion in any off-grid system.
Unless you can magically waggle your hands in the air to create perfectly pristine, clear air for your PV system (and while you're at it, thin the atmosphere to maximize your inputs), you'd be a fool to not have a contingency plan at hand.
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I'm not a believer that you need the generator. Your winter experience might be a challenge, but if you really run the numbers and pay attention to your actual usage I'd just go for the solar with the smart battery combiner so that you can safely get some charge from your bus's alternator.
That is, if you don't mind your inheritors footing the bill to have your peop-sickles extracted in the Spring...
Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.
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Old 07-20-2019, 04:52 PM   #16
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Sorry, but will YOU be trying to survive a NW Montana winter on solar, alone?!!
A] the Sun is at it's closest to the horizon. What light arrives is filtered thru a considerably thicker column of air.
B] Don't recollect ever reading MT is the go-to place to work on your winter tan. So, let's add less protracted sunlight, with inclement weather to the already reduced solar strength.
.
A gen-set should be a no-brainer for inclusion in any off-grid system.
Unless you can magically waggle your hands in the air to create perfectly pristine, clear air for your PV system (and while you're at it, thin the atmosphere to maximize your inputs), you'd be a fool to not have a contingency plan at hand.That is, if you don't mind your inheritors footing the bill to have your peop-sickles extracted in the Spring...
Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.
Hahah thanks Matt. Definitely not the place for tanning in the winter but our riding is EPIC. Appreciate the sarcasm but I'm new to all of this and just trying to learn. Sounds like a shore power/genny/and solar set up should cover my bases? We are going to park at our KOA for the winter since they plow and also offer shore access. Might be a dumb question, but my wife and I were also brainstorming and have you ever seen someone do something with wind? We do get a significant amount of wind so I thought about maybe mounting a turbine at a 45 to the roof. Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated!!!
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Old 07-20-2019, 05:18 PM   #17
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Urrggggggg. I had one of the Harbor Freight 2000w Generators but returned it thinking that we would be with solar/alternator charging. Guess that's another thing to save up for hahaha, thanks for the advice. BUS LIFE. Would I want to use the genny to charge my battery bank? Can't wait to get this wood stove in. I think we are just going to get one of these https://www.acehardware.com/departme...xoCmbAQAvD_BwE

The cubic minis are cool and all but it seems like a lot of loading through the night and it sounds like they only take small chunks of wood. We live in NW MT so keeping it warm at night is going to be key.
Check with your insurance company, many don't like seeing wood burning stoves.
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Old 07-20-2019, 06:13 PM   #18
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No worries, chum. The sarcasm was not directed in your direction.
Having recently lived thru 16 NH winters, yeah- yo comprendro epic.
Y'all ought be just fine with shore power. So long's no improperly sided trees arc out the conductors (refer to closing line, last post..)
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Hahah thanks Matt. Definitely not the place for tanning in the winter but our riding is EPIC. Appreciate the sarcasm but I'm new to all of this and just trying to learn. Sounds like a shore power/genny/and solar set up should cover my bases? We are going to park at our KOA for the winter since they plow and also offer shore access. Might be a dumb question, but my wife and I were also brainstorming and have you ever seen someone do something with wind? We do get a significant amount of wind so I thought about maybe mounting a turbine at a 45 to the roof. Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated!!!
Fact is, I'm scheming to use an old-skool air-cooler VW DC genny to supplement my supply!
Plan is to mount forward on the deck, over the windscreen split, with a small, reduced air foil to generate & charge the house batts in transit, and, with larger, slower-moving blades attached, mount on a swivel atop an 8'-10' deck-mounted post while encamped.
Still working out the most efficient blade design for transiting: don't wanna burn out my l'il genny from the insane wind velocity my 175 HP 444 can create...
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Old 07-20-2019, 06:30 PM   #19
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The cubic minis are cool and all but it seems like a lot of loading through the night and it sounds like they only take small chunks of wood. We live in NW MT so keeping it warm at night is going to be key.
It IS a lot of loading wood through the night, and the Cubic does only take small chunks. You might get an hour burn time out of a load. If you're planning on using it for heat through the night, best to get a bigger stove with a longer burn time. Ours is good for keeping the bus warm but requires constant tending, and so we only use it during the day.
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Old 07-20-2019, 07:06 PM   #20
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For the record I know something about winters too. 8 years in Fairbanks Alaska, 20 years in New Hampshire, and 6 years in Vermont. I personally would avoid a generator whenever possible. Shore power is an obvious great choice.
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